


fold your hands child

by Anonymous



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dark Comedy, Dystopia, End of the World, Gen, M/M, Mentioned Character Death, Non-Linear Narrative, Unreliable Narrator, a LOT of rain, slight elements of horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 01:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20734028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: At the end of the world it rains. Jaemin watches — he hasn't got much else to do.





	fold your hands child

**Author's Note:**

> thank u bobby and xie, this one is for u

v

At the end of the world it rains.

Just before the end of the world it rains too. It’s slightly hard to specify when exactly the end of the world was; as it hadn’t stopped raining for something close to eight months.

Jaemin vocalises these thoughts — as always Jeno stays quiet. Mark gives Jaemin an unimpressed look. “Nana, it’s not the end of the world.”

“You nonbeliever,” Jaemin replies. Once it would have been scathing but there’s no point now. Mark lives in a perpetual state of illusion and as much as it hurts for Jaemin to be constantly told he’s a liar, at least Mark isn’t scared.

Not like Jaemin. Jaemin is terrified. Jaemin sits in their seventh storey apartment and looks out the window at the water that laps against the fourth floor. He thinks back, months and months ago when Renjun told them that they needed to leave the city. Jaemin had been a nonbeliever then, Jaemin had laughed it off.

Now, Jaemin has not seen Renjun for months and he wishes he had listened to him. Mark tells Jaemin he’s stupid; that Renjun was crazy and so is Jaemin. Jeno says nothing. Ever since Renjun left he hasn’t had a lot to say. It’s just one of those universal truths.

He offers the concept of universal truths to Mark.

Mark turns from where he’s tying the curtain cords back, squinting his eyes to look at Jaemin. “But you can’t have a universal truth, there’s nothing that everything will agree with.”

Jaemin shrugs, tongue feeling as clumsy as ever. He always feels clumsy when talking to Mark now. It used to be different between them, Jaemin able to tell Mark anything and Mark responding with just as much enthusiasm, if not more.

Jaemin and Mark have not been anything more for a long time now. Another universal truth. Before the rain started, before it started and showed no sights of stopping, Jaemin and Mark had been something Jaemin would have happily labelled a universal truth.

That was before the rain though; before they lost their homes and families and sanity. Now the three of them sit in an apartment that is not theirs and watch the rain flood the stairwell in the corridor, and stream down the windows, and pool under the doorframes.

The end of the world kind of puts a damper on things.

ii

“We should leave,” Renjun had said, months ago. “Now, before things get any worse. There are communities outside the city, we can get somewhere safe!”

Mark had blinked before declaring Renjun silly. Jaemin had watched the exchange silently.

Renjun had been frantic. “Mark – Mark there is no power. We won’t have food for much longer. These building foundations were not made to hold up whilst being submerged in water. We won’t survive if we don’t get out!”

“Injunnie,” Mark had said placidly. “I think you’re overreacting. It’s been a few weeks; the rain will stop soon. And besides — how are we meant to get out? Like you said, there’s no power. We have no transport. We cannot swim out the city.”

“But we’ve got to try,” Renjun had whispered, breath bubbling up in his throat. “Mark Hyung —we are going to die.”

“Injunnie,” Mark had said comfortingly. Smoothly. Sternly. “You will die if you try to leave. It’s dangerous out there. The rain will stop soon. We have to wait it out, wait for help.”

“Mark-”

“-Renjun. Get some sleep. We’ll search the building for more batteries tomorrow, see if we can get the radio to work again. But you need to calm down. Look at this rationally. They’re not just going to let the whole city drown.”

viii

Jaemin opens the cupboard. The wood is warped and the door hangs at a funny angle and he opens it and looks at the warped, wet shelves. And at the shelves only.

The cupboard is empty which is no shock. It’s been empty for a week now. Still, Jaemin opens it every morning, just to check.

Nothing has changed. It’s still empty. Jaemin shuts the cupboard. Scratches his elbow. Walks over to the window. The rain is almost at the seventh floor, at Jaemin’s floor. Soon it will be over.

Jaemin is scared shitless. You’d think, after nine months of watching the water rise; you would get used to the idea that you would die soon. Jaemin is still not used to it.

iv

"Jaemin," Mark says, standing over him. "What are you doing?"

Jaemin looks at Mark. Really looks at him. Mark who is pallid and emancipated and smells nearly as bad as Jeno does. Mark, who is Jaemin's best friend, Jaemin's closest friend — Jaemin's only friend.

Mark who was something so close to being something more, way back before all of this started happening.

Once again, it's a case of where the start is. Somewhere along the line, between those first weeks of March and now, Mark changed. It was such a slow, gradual process that Jaemin didn't realise was happening until about half a minute ago.

But now Jaemin looks at Mark; at Mark who is a ghost, a shadow, a husk. A Mark who is nothing like the man Jaemin fell in love with and it hurts because Jaemin can't exactly quite remember the man he did fall in love with, only that the man stood above him is not him.

Jaemin traces his finger through the grout between the bathroom tiles. "Not much."

Mark sits down, pushing the door of the cleaning cupboard shut so he can lean against it. "There's never much to do."

vi

Jaemin sits next to Jeno. The smell of damp and rot is stronger in the living room than any other room in their apartment. Most of the time Jaemin has perfected the art of ignoring it; it's not like they have a chance to get rid of it. Sometimes though he can't ignore it, and he sits on the sofa and breathes in this wet cloying stink and wants to throw up.  
  
Once or twice he has thrown up, Jeno not even flinching. It’s become something that’s just a fact of their life. It rains, it smells, Jaemin vomits.

It’s sad though, a waste of what little stored food they have left. Jaemin tries to eat less because of this. Mark always notices though, looks at him with sad, sad eyes.

Everything about Mark is sad now. He carries it like a cloak, every movement of his slow and hesitant, scared to disrupt the storm. Jaemin wishes he would disrupt it, that he’d shout and punch and kick and scream, that he’d yell at Jaemin.

But that wouldn’t make Mark any happier so Jaemin just checks the bolts on the front door.

  
  
  
i

  
"Nana," Jeno had said once, long ago when the rain was much smaller, and he still spoke. "Nana what happens if we die?"  
  
"We hope our next life is better than this one has been," Jaemin had replied, bait  
made to lure a glimpse of Jeno's smile.

For once Jeno hadn't fallen for it. He'd just looked at Jaemin eyes wide, eyelashes damp. “What happens if we die at different times?”

“Why would that ever happen,” Jaemin had said dismissively, ignoring how his heart was screaming inside his chest. 

ix

Jaemin wants to cry but he’s terrified that their apartment will flood. It’s not even their apartment, they would have never been able to afford the penthouse.

There’s nothing that stopped them from taking the penthouse when they did, and there still is nothing that will try to take it from them now. The rest of the building’s inhabitants had disappeared a long time ago. They’re at the top of the food chain – and the only thing beneath them is the endless, endless sea.

iii

“He’s dead!” Jaemin snapped, pushing Mark against the wall. “He’s dead and it’s your fault, it’s your fault, this is your fucking fault! If you had —if you had just humoured him! Stopped him from leaving!”

“Jaemin,” Mark pushes back. “Nana!”

“It’s your fault!” Jaemin is shouting now. The only thing louder than the rain. “It’s your fault! He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!”

“Nana.”

“Don’t – don’t ‘Nana’ me! He’s dead, Mark! Why don’t you get it?”

“I do get it,” Mark shouts. Louder than the rain and Jaemin both. Out of character for Mark. “Bloody hell Jaemin of course I get it! I watched him die! I know it’s my fault!”

vii

Jaemin wakes up one morning and he knows. The bathroom is not a room they use anymore, the plumbing destroyed weeks ago — and it’s not like they need to take showers.

Jaemin debates going in there, just to check. He knows what it looks like – the grout coming up between the tiles on the floor, the mirror frame rusted bright orange. There’s a cupboard of cleaning products and old razors, forgotten toothbrushes.

Jaemin curls up next to Jeno, pushing their shoulders together. Jeno says nothing but lies his head on Jaemin’s shoulder, falling into him. It’s a comfort; even if Jeno refuses to speak anymore he’ll still cuddle with Jaemin. But Jaemin wishes he’d speak again, just once more.

“I’m lonely,” he tries hesitantly. Jeno’s eyes stay shut. “I miss you. I miss you and Renjun and Mark. I miss Mark so much Jeno, I miss him so much. It hurts, it hurts so bad. I know we joked about it, about what would happen when we died. But it’s not funny anymore, it hasn’t been funny for so long now. I’m scared Jeno — I’m so, so scared.”

Jeno hasn’t spoken properly since Renjun had gone. That might be because Jeno died when Renjun did, and his stinking rotting corpse was not as much sat on the sofa as it was part of the sofa.

Mark had never noticed, so Jaemin forgets to notice too.

**Author's Note:**

> please, please leave your comments! Thank you an incredible lot of reading. I really wish to hear your thoughts — I've been vague and non-explanatory through the fic and I'm so interested to know what things you find and what you think has happened! I've sprinkled a lot of hints, I'm hoping you find them!
> 
> also drawing attention to this _‘The end of the world kind of puts a damper on things’_ because it's the best thing i have written and the best thing i will ever write. __
> 
> not beta read because if i look at this one more time i'll delete it instead of posting it  
_yes the title is a lyric from a cobra starship song. you are welcome uwu_  



End file.
